No international relationship has more power to determine the success of Andy Burnham’s premiership. So you might imagine the stakes for the prime minister’s first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday would be high. Yet Burnham may prove to be a lucky general.
The balance of risk has shifted. Trump is unpopular at home, where inflation remains high, and is mired in an intractable conflict in Iran that has the potential to sink his midterm dreams. When Keir Starmer first visited Trump in February 2025, the situation could not have been more different.
The notoriously unpredictable president had just won the US election and was at the height of his powers – and was showing muscle on Nato and Ukraine, and with threats of tariffs. Starmer’s “keep calm and carry on” strategy helped keep Trump on board the defence alliance and also protected the UK from the worst of his aggression over trade. But it came with a cost: he was often left looking obsequious and at odds with the national mood.
Burnham defended his predecessor’s approach but in June signalled he would take a different direction. But there is no suggestion he will follow the more combative approach of Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister. Instead, one source said he would probably take a “third way” between Starmer and Carney, pushing back more than his predecessor publicly and privately, but avoiding open diplomatic warfare.
A second source said the prime minister had three ambitions for Tuesday’s talks: bond with Trump, make the case for Ukraine, and avoid any drama. Early clues about how the talks might go from the White House perspective have been mixed. In June, Trump suggested Burnham was “extremely liberal” (not as a compliment) and dismissively described him as the “mayor of a town”.
The US president remains angry the UK did not join his strikes on Iran, and has attacked the country as a “dying” nation “on the edge of disaster”. More recent comments that he might not help if Argentina again tried to seize the Falklands, and that he would love to see a united Ireland, suggest his displeasure has not abated. But that will not necessarily translate into a strained personal relationship with Burnham.
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